Artemis looked down at Mercury, the town she used to live in. Now it crawled with unfamiliar moving dots. An ant colony.
A couple of them broke away from the rest, starting up the hill.
Rose was the first to step down into the valley. “That’s Kat, isn’t it?” she yelled at a forty-five-degree angle away from the figures. “And little Cole!”
The woman in front snorted and looked back at the younger boy behind her. “It’s me!” the woman said as she came closer. “You’re as blind as ever.”
“Oh, respect your elders,” Rose snapped. She had a glare harsher than the sun. For a moment, Artemis worried that this trip wasn’t going to go as smoothly as they’d expected.
But then both parties burst out laughing.
“Come on,” Kat said. “Let’s get you some food and water.”
They followed these people int
